Originally Posted by
Doohickie
I don't know. It's obvious what side of the debate you're on, and I'm willing to let that lay for a moment. But here is the insight we get from ubrayj02: "Helmets make people look like 'tards."
Now look back at my contributions to the thread. I shared my personal experience as someone who has benefited from helmet use, and I also discussed my professional experience as an engineer regarding shock and crash testing.
I'm asking you to, just for a moment, lay your own personal prejudices aside and ask you which person, me or ubrayj02, is contributing more to the discussion.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if ubrayj02 is still in his teens or barely out of them. In his posts there is that sense of invincibility that comes with youth. A little experience will help him realize that it's better to "look like 'tards" (his own words) than to end up with a brain injury, which I'm quite certain would have happened if I had been helmetless on Valentine's Day this year.
well, there's little question that ubrayj02's contributions are of little value, but it should be obvious from my response to your taking ubrayj02 to task, that your contributions have been less than stellar themselves.
I'd be a little embarassed if I was an engineer and claimed a bicycle helmet worked because it cracked.
I would think that you've shown a picture of a scraped chin and wrist as proof of the effectiveness of your helmet would be an embarassment as an engineer.
I would suggest looking at the topic from a scientific point of view regarding the odds of head injury for cyclists vs. head injuries for the public in general and the level of protection supplied by bicycle helmets vs. the reasonable expected forces of collisions cyclists routinely encounter.
I see your new to the forums (11 posts on this thread vs. 890 for me) so I'll give you a starting point on the topic.
Since you are an engineer, here's a link to a paper from the director of the UK's principal UK test laboratory for helmets. Maybe there's something in there that you might find new.
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2023.pdf
you might also want to start out with another basic article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet
there's lots of references to check on there.
Happy learning!